What does it mean to say that the pope is infallible? Does this mean that he never makes any mistakes, never sins, or that he is perfect?

The doctrine of Papal Infallibility [1] was formally defined at the first Vatican council in 1870, but its roots run much deeper:

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:14-19).

We can trace in an unbroken line all of the popes, from Benedict XVI back to Peter the apostle; and just as we believe that the bishops are the successors of the apostles, we believe that the Pope, as earthly head of the Church, is the successor to the "head" apostle, Saint Peter. As such, he is the visible head of the Church on earth and the vicar of Christ, who Is the Head of the Church (Ephesians 5:23).

I'm still having troubles with the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Why does the Church insist on this dogma, and doesn't it contradict the Bible?

Recall that there are three common objections to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which are made by modern Protestants in general and Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in particular:

• Only God is sinless. So if Catholics believe that Mary is sinless too, does that not mean that Catholics make Mary into God (or a god)? Jesus was sinless because He Is God.
• Isn't sin a part of human nature? Then how can Catholics believe that Mary was conceived without sin?
• Doesn't the Bible itself tell us that all of us are sinners—and so doesn't this belief necessarily contradict the Bible?

There may be a number of other less-frequent objections, but, as I have mentioned before, to treat every objection would require too much time for even a short series of posts (or RCIA sessions). In the previous installments of this short series, I considered in turn the doctrine of original sin and what the Church teaches concerning the Immaculate Conception, and then I replied to the first two objections. Today, I would like to wrap-up by considering a few of the Biblical verses concerning this doctrine.

I'm having troubles with the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Why does the Church insist on this dogma, and doesn't it contradict the Bible? Also, if Mary is sinless, then how is she not God (or at least a god)?

In talking a number of my friends who have converted from Protestantism—in particular, Baptist, Evangelical, or Fundamentalist forms of Protestantism—to Catholicism, I've found that there are certain doctrines or dogmas which are always last to be accepted. The Marian doctrines are always among these, and I suspect that if they had to name one doctrine which was hardest of those, it would be the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The objections aren't always the same, but many are similar:

• Only God is sinless. So if Catholics believe that Mary is sinless too, does that not mean that Catholics make Mary into God (or a god)? Jesus was sinless because He Is God.
• Isn't sin a part of human nature? Then how can Catholics believe that Mary was conceived without sin?
• Doesn't the Bible itself tell us that all of us are sinners—and so doesn't this belief necessarily contradict the Bible?

These are the main objections, though there are also a number of questions which get associated with these, and there are a number of "minor" objections held by different individuals which are no less potent (for those individuals) for not being widespread. Actually to deal extensively with these three "major" objections (let alone the "minor" ones) and to explain the meaning the of dogma, etc would be more than could be dealt with by one post or one RCIA session (etc.) [1].

"For surely anyone's love will grow feebler and cooler towards one whom, as he supposes, he will have to leave, whose truth and wisdom he will have to reject, and that after he has come to the full knowledge of them, according to his capacity, in the perfection of felicity. No one can love a human friend with loyalty if he knows that in the future he will be his enemy" (City of God, Book XII, Chapter 21).

The last couple of weeks, I've been discussing happiness as it relates to the good, and the good as it relates to love. This week, I would like to discuss love is it relates to God. So far, I've given a basic definition for happiness—namely that our lives are only truly happy if we spend them in pursuit of the Good, meaning that we pursue our greatest goods first and our other lesser goods only when these do not hinder our pursuit of the greater goods. Moreover, to love somebody means to desire that person's greatest happiness, which in turn means desiring that that person pursue and acquire or attain his highest goods. As for these goods, the highest goods of man are to know (or understand) and to love, but the greatest, perfect, and supreme Good is God. In other words, man should aspire to final union with God, even though this is achieved only after this life; but he should also attempt to love others, and to pursue not only knowledge about God, but also the so-called "secular" knowledge (e.g. Natural philosophy, science, etc).

Saint Anselm, in formulating his famous ontological argument, noted that God is defined as "that than which greater cannot be thought" ("GCNBT"). As I mentioned in the first part of this series,
In other words, this is what (or Who) God is, by definition (and regardless of whether or not St Anselm's proof itself holds), and it can be nicely combined with Divine Simplicity (the two seem to be naturally intertwined in the thought of St Augustine, for example), which is a tenet of Classical Theism and of the Catholic Faith. In other words, when a faithful Catholic refers to God, he is referring to GCNBT, whether or not St Anselm's argument works. In other words, whether He exists or not, God is the greatest Good of which we can conceive.

"For surely anyone's love will grow feebler and cooler towards one whom, as he supposes, he will have to leave, whose truth and wisdom he will have to reject, and that after he has come to the full knowledge of them, according to his capacity, in the perfection of felicity. No one can love a human friend with loyalty if he knows that in the future he will be his enemy" (City of God, Book XII, Chapter 21).

Last week, I discussed this passage from Saint Augustine's City of God in the context of happiness and God as the total, supreme, and perfect good--the Ultimate Good. Today I want to explore a little more about what this means with regard to love.

What does it mean to love? This needs to be answered before much else can be discussed. There are a great many opinions about what it means to love, and most of them are wrong. This should not be surprising, since these mistaken opinions are I believe related to the various mistaken opinions about what constitutes happiness and what constitutes good. The three things--the good, happiness, and love--are, after all, related to each other.

"For surely anyone's love will grow feebler and cooler towards one whom, as he supposes, he will have to leave, whose truth and wisdom he will have to reject, and that after he has come to the full knowledge of them, according to his capacity, in the perfection of felicity. No one can love a human friend with loyalty if he knows that in the future he will be his enemy" (City of God, Book XII, Chapter 21).

I found quite a bit of meaning in this short passage, but I wanted to focus on one thing in particular which I can use as a springboard for discussion. At some earlier point in the City of God, St Augustine mentions that true happiness must be lasting, or else it will be spoiled by the fear of its loss. Happiness—that is, true happiness—must be final and not cyclic. Aristotle was right here, and Plato wrong. In this life, we can only strive for happiness, but we can't obtain it finally during this life.

We've instituted an anonymous question box for RCIA. Last week, we had our first question: Doesn't all this dogma and doctrine that the Church teaches get in the way of a "personal relationship" with God? [1]

In order to understand the answer to this question, you first need to know what the dogma and the doctrine of the Church really are. A doctrine just means a "teaching" and it expresses in some way the Church's understanding about either God, us, or the relationship between God and us. So, for example, a moral doctrine is a doctrine which expresses the Church's understanding about right living and right relationships: it is about how we should relate to each other, to ourselves, and even to God. A dogma is a special type of doctrine, in that the Church's dogma is what we believe to have been definitively revealed and to be definitively interpreted by the Church through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Another way of thinking about a dogma is to say that it is a conclusion, one of the actual "ends" of a doctrine: it's what a doctrine ultimately points or leads to, and what a doctrine should guide us to conclude. Since God does not change but our understanding does, this means that doctrines might develop, but that dogma are final.

Note: This is part one of a series of five posts about God. These were originally written as an RCIA presentation about God the Father. These posts are in an expanded form, and the presentation as given does not necessarily follow the posts exactly. I was constrained in the presentation itself to keep the time to under about 45 minutes or so, and to be somewhat conversational (sine it was their first formal session). Here is the full written transcript, which goes beyond what I did in the presentation.

In their Handbook for Christian Apologetics, Professors Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli (S.J.) present twenty different arguments for the existence of God. These range from physical to psychological, and form historical to relatively modern: and different of these ways of knowing that God exists will be helpful to different types of people. I want to begin today by outlining briefly a few of these as a sort of extension of the last two of your reflection questions, because each of these arguments also tells us something about God.

There is a charge which is leveled against the catholic Church from time to time--and specifically against the Magisterium--which goes something like this: faith is about a relationship with God, and all these dogmas of the Church hinder that relationship. The Church is too concerned that people are believing the right things, and not concerned nearly enough helping them to develop a good personal relationship with Jesus Christ, or with any person of the Trinity for that matter. Oddly enough, the unspoken sentiment is just as often that these doctrines aren't true as that they aren't important--the anti-dogmatist is quite often only a subconscious dogmatist who believes in a different set of dogmas.

This claim against the Church is lately made most frequently by Protestants--though the atheist and the agnostic have their variations on it--many of whom have tried to jettison all dogma to have a "simpler" relationship with Christ. There are, of course, many other Protestants who see the reasonableness of a dogma, whether they be "Bible only" Protestants or whether they draw on the Bible and some of the Church fathers, or the creeds, or the early councils. After all, a dogma is nothing more than a conclusion, whatever it may be grounded in, whether in the authority of the Church or Tradition or the Scriptures. The Protestant statement that the Bible alone is authoritative is every bit as dogmatic as the infallibility of the pope; the secularist statement that nature cannot alter her course is every bit as dogmatic as the statement that Christ is true God and also true man.

Note: This is the third installment on a long-dormant series of posts in which I reflect upon various heresies. Today's subject is cynicism; the modern cynic often tends to combine one or more formal heresies, or more broadly to reject three important ideas: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. I should add as a final note that I am here reflecting upon modern cynics, which are loosely based on the cynics described by Fr George Rutler in his essay for Disorientation: How to Go to College without Losing Your Mind, and not necessarily as the Greek philosophers such as Diogenes and Antisthenes (though these do have some things in common).
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"Jesus answered: My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would certainly strive that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now my kingdom is not from hence. Pilate therefore said to him: Art thou a king then? Jesus answered: Thou sayest that I am a king. For this was I born, and for this came I into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth. Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews, and saith to them: I find no cause in him" (John 18:36-38).

As a general rule, heresy involves taken a single true doctrine or set of true doctrines and either rejecting them or overemphasizing them to the detriment of all other doctrines. Today's heresy, however, is not a heresy in the proper and particular sense, but rather is a type of attitude which lends itself to heresy, and indeed is a more vague kind of heresy. In fact, in a certain sense, it is an attitude adopted along with certain other attitudes or heresies, upon whose shoulders it stands. Cynicism might be described as the combinations of modernity (and post-modernity), moral relativism, and iconoclasm with a decided--indeed even and intentional--lack of charity.